


The Quintessence of Dust

by vestiges



Category: No. 6 (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Mild Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 16:11:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5423504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vestiges/pseuds/vestiges
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The cosmic dust would form a vessel for his glittering soul; he would fill it and be weighted down by flesh once more. He would return to that world of rage and pain, grief and guilt, ecstasy and joy.</p><p>He would return to him. </p><p>or</p><p>Nezumi is inexplicably drawn to Shion across lifetimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Quintessence of Dust

_The universe spread out before him endlessly. He was weightless, unencumbered by the confines of flesh. His soul floated glowing and silver in the gathering cosmic mist. If it was perhaps a bit tarnished in its gleam, there was no one to stand witness but the myriad of glittering stars dancing across the unrepentant darkness. He felt the gentle tug of nebulae. He knew then it was time to return. He knew not the time spent in the cradle of the universe during this death. Perhaps eternities had drifted by achingly soft and sweet. Perhaps mere moments had slipped silently away on slippered feet. But he knew what the misty touch of the nebulae foretold. The cosmic dust would form a vessel for his glittering soul; he would fill it and be weighted down by flesh once more. He would return to that world of rage and pain, grief and guilt, ecstasy and joy._

_He would return to_ him.

—

The triumphant wail of life successfully delivered soared through the swirling cacophony of humanity, pitched high above dipping melodies and tiptoeing harmonies.

In the gutter outside the hospital, a small rat lifted its head toward the noise, nose twitching.

—

The market was haphazardly sprawled between ramshackle buildings, full of vibrancy despite the poverty of its patrons. Swathes of fabric in amethyst, jade, lapis, and ruby hung across the stalls of fruit vendor and butcher alike, draping from rooftops and stirred lightly by an arid breeze. Vendors hawked their colorful wares – figs, dates, cactus flower wreaths, strands of clay beads dyed bright like the sunset – while the overwhelming din of layered conversation hung heavy in the air.

Tucked in a small corner of an adjacent alley stood a small crowd of hunched backs and wrinkled faces. The attention of this crowd was focused on a small boy sitting cross-legged on the hard packed dirt. The boy’s mouth was open in song and a thousand melodies sprung forth from it. The soaring of his voice echoed the rise and fall of civilizations, infused with the strength of fabled castles, imbued with the serenity of the sky and the timelessness of the desert. Perched upon his shoulder was a small rat with its face turned toward the boy’s voice. It’s nose twitched as if sensing the silent glide of sound through the air. Strands of black hair fell in disarray across a deceptively feminine face. Though now too young for such exotic features, his was a face that held the promise of beauty in every sharp slant and angular plane. In several years he would be breathtaking; to sing with such a face would be to make the very air cease its motion.

This was his first life. It was not a long one; soon after his back-alley performance the boy was snatched by a man who provided carnal pleasures to those guards too restricted by palace life. At his tender age, the boy learned what it meant to suffer at the hands of those with more power. His pale skin was forever mottled with bruises in the shape of fleshy fingerprints and he could feel a lingering ache deep in his being that no young child should ever know. Eventually he succumbed to the creeping ache, vision fading to black even as his body was abused by a particularly rough guard with small, sharp hands and maelstrom eyes.

But his first short life was not without a burst of shimmering light splashed across the darkness. The building where the boy was stabled had been filled with other children, of every gender and ethnicity available to the owners. It was naught more than a basement, dimly lit and damp, despite the desert conditions above ground. The upper levels of the building housed the lavish rooms – sumptuous beds, downy pillows, wooden tables lavishly carved with images of distant mythologies. Exotic and lush, the boy knew to fear the upper rooms. In the basement, each child shared a space with another. The boy found himself shackled with two others: one was a slim figure constantly shrouded in a long waterfall tangle of brown hair, popular merely because they could satisfy the hunger for male or female flesh; the other a boy of a similar age with mottled skin like parchment dotted with spilled ink and russet eyes sparking with the remains of a blistering wildfire that customers took great pleasure in attempting to smother. The three were kept together because there were no others, male or female, as popular among the patrons as they.

The boy would sing for the two other children, and his voice often lulled the residents of the basement asleep during the slow daytime hours. Only the boy and his russet-eyed companion would remain awake late into the afternoon, speaking in hushed whispers about escape and jinn and the red desert sands sprawled under a cerulean sky. One day, the two whispered, we will see it for ourselves. We will choose our own path to walk. And the boys touched hands, a brief interlocking of fingers and fate and clumsy promises. There were three small rats that kept the two company and together the two named them. _Alibaba_ , who escaped the forty thieves through cunning. _Scheherazade_ , who escaped her death through storytelling. _Sinbad_ , who escaped his fate through luck.

Then there was nothing.

No more whispers and no more entwined hands. The wildfire eyes disappeared into the gloom one evening and that was the last the boy ever saw of them in this life.

Soon after he succumbed to death and passed into the ether.

 

_And thus passed the first incarnation of the spirit known as Nezumi._

**Author's Note:**

> I just recently managed to wander my way to this particular fandom and I am very glad I did. I love Nezumi and Shion and this idea wouldn't leave me alone once it had snuck its way into my brain. Nezumi is a soul reincarnated after every death; he can remember in perfect detail every memory of his past lives. And one detail stands out more clearly than the rest: he has always been inexplicably drawn towards the same soul in every incarnation of himself. The catch: that soul, Shion, never remembers who Nezumi really is, no matter what might have happened in their past lives. 
> 
> This idea was loosely based off a wonderful novel by Ann Brashares called "My Name is Memory." 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this first life; there are more to come. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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